Dead Baby In The Road

I am 48 years old. I always considered myself a sensitive since a young child, however, the experiences have gotten fewer as I've aged. Perhaps I have become more cynical and stoic in the years, or I am just not as open as I used to be, I don't know, but I have had numerous experiences. Since I just found this site, I will start with a brief one and maybe will share the more detailed (and scarier) ones later.

I guess I was about 17. I remember it was early March. It was one of those nights where there was both a light fog and spitting rain. My best friend had his own car, a baby blue Ford Pinto, a putt-putt car at best. If we had money for gas we would drive around on Friday nights doing nothing in particular but listening to the radio and talking. Occasionally we smoked some pot. We picked up one of our girlfriends who was usually able to get a joint from her older sister, this night being no exception, but I want it to be known we had not smoked anything before the event.

We were not on a dark country road but a common thoroughfare where there was normal traffic in front and behind us, travelling 35-40 mph. Karen was newly sat in the back seat pretty much still saying her hellos and how are yous, etc. I was in the passenger seat. Jack was a very careful driver, almost always driving too slow.

Suddenly in the road ahead was what looked like a baby, half wrapped in a pale pink blanket, blood smeared across its face. I would guess it was about 10 months old. Having come up upon it so suddenly through the vague mist and rain in the road, we simply glided right over it. There were no bumps heard under the car or anything. It happened so quickly.

After a few seconds of disbelief I dared to say, "Did you see that?" Afterall, maybe it was just me who saw it.

Jack was silent. Karen asked, "What?"

"Did you see that in the road?" I repeated.

Jack finally croaked, "I'm not even going to say what I think that was."

Karen was pressing still, "What? What?! I didn't see anything."

"It looked like a dead baby," I said finally.

Karen laughed and repeated. "What?!"

I told Jack to turn around immediately, but he didn't and he still didn't concur with me on what that was in the road. He took a long way around up to the main highway and through the back neighborhoods to go back to the original spot. We were only past the site for about 15 minutes total before we returned. I was terribly impatient to get back there! And was annoyed at Jack who I believe was just too terrified so he purposely didn't turn around despite my pleading.

As we reapproached I expected to see other cars stopped, an ambulance, anything to prove that we just witnessed a baby dead in the road as if it had been tossed out a car window or thrown into oncoming traffic from the roadside.

There was nothing there.

I expected bloodstains, tire marks, people gathered. Nothing. We even went around again but there was no sign that anything unusual occured at the spot in the road. I scanned the sides of the road. Nothing, not even a baby blanket.

We did smoke the joint, but that just made the experience more heightened in my head at least. The others, I'm not sure, except the next day at school, Jack pretty much dismissed it.

"It was probably a possum," he said.

"No it wasn't, it was distinctly what we saw it was..." besides, if it was a dead opposum, it would still be there dead, worse, flattened.

The subject was dropped between us, but I scoured the newspapers for weeks looking for anything that might tell of this accident. I went back there myself. There was never a sign of anything, but I had always wondered about the house just near that spot that sat back from the road, a dirty unkept place that looked like it was split into several apartments. I think someone once said it was a half-way house for young girls in trouble. Hmmmm-- but I never checked that out for fact. If it was indeed a murder or an abortion or whatever, certainly someone else would have seen it, there were so many other cars travelling right over it as we did. Maybe by reading this, someone else will come forward.

For years as I drove past that point on that same road I have always wondered. Still do today. Jack and I are still friends -- middle-aged men now yet we have rarely talked about it again until just recently. We recalled the incident, sharing the story with some friends around Halloween time, and we are in complete agreement that what we saw that misty night was a dead baby in the road.